Notes on the Parish Council Meeting 6/12/11

The meeting started at 7.30 with some comments on the last meeting:

• There has been no meeting confirmed yet with regard to The Fountain and Planning Permission
• Suffolk County Council (SCC) Highways have confirmed that the white lines within the village boundaries conform to that required and that all the current speed limits are correct
• SCC have stated that there is not enough road side development to warrant a change in the speed limit between Humber Doucy Lane and Tuddenham village.

Suffolk Coastal District Council (SCDC) has proposed that ownership of the site of the children's playground off Keightley Way pass to the Parish Council. Because of the potential extra expenses that would fall on the Parish Council, it was decided not to make a decision at this time but to express an interest to SCDC so that the implications could be considered in more depth.

The local policeman, Shaun Brett, mentioned in his report that, of all the villages in the Kesgrave Safer neighbourhood Team area, only Tuddenham had a road layout that did not conform to the rules for a 'speed reduction site'. Thus, he will continue to monitor the speed through the village but only on an advisory basis. He also mentioned that there had been four crimes in the village over the last period and was most concerned about the rise in metal thefts from garages.

Bill Pipe mentioned that the new bench that had been provided by the Parish Council (to replace the old one commemorating the 1937 coronation) had been badly damaged by a van reversing into it. He had, thus removed it and put the supplier on notice to provide a replacement once the insurance formalities were dealt with.

In discussions about the grit bins placed around the village, the clerk mentioned that she had heard from a resident of Keightley Way that, on reporting to SCDC that the bin there was empty, was told that requests for bin top ups could only come from the Parish Council. The clerk advised that she was going to check on this and a further note will be provided in this blog once the real position has been made clear.

The last item on the agenda was to set the annual precept that the council requests from SCDC - this being the annual payment from SCDC council tax that comes to the Parish Council. After a long discussion on all the aspects of the expenditure, it was decided that the precept for the year 2012/20133 would remain the same as this year (and last year). This means that for the third year in a row, the Parish Council has funded some if its activities  from its own reserves.

It was mentioned that, in reporting the breakdown of the council tax for this current year, both SCC and SCDC were shown as holding their rate at the previous year's levels but the Parish Council was shown as increasing their charge. This was not the actual situation because the Parish Council precept as shown on the report is calculated from the number of households paying the tax. This means that the Parish's amount per dwelling can vary year on year due to a changing number of households paying the overall total. This usually changes because of changes to the number of dwellings receiving council tax relief. In the last year, this number increased, thus reducing the number of households paying the tax - hence with a reduced number of household, the tax per dwelling increased without a corresponding increase in the actual precept!

Dates of forthcoming Parish Council Meetings in 2012.
These take place on the first Tuesday in the month as follows:
6th March, 1st May, 3rd July, 4th September and 4th December

Please note: The full draft minutes will be published as soon as they are available from the Parish Clerk